Badawi calms priests over Islamic state

Badawi calms priests over Islamic state

Mark Bendeich, Reuters/Kuala Lumpur

Malaysia's Muslim prime minister broke new ground in national
race relations on Tuesday, appearing for the first time at a
Christian gathering to dismiss the notion that his country was
governed as an Islamic state.

In an emotional speech, which followed a moving Christian
prayer for his cancer-stricken wife, Prime Minister Abdullah
Ahmad Badawi wiped away tears in front of dozens of priests and
nuns as he appealed for religious dialogue and moderation.

"As prime minister of Malaysia, I am not a leader of Muslims
but a Muslim leader of all Malaysians," the former Islamic
scholar told a conference of the World Council of Churches (WCC),
an umbrella group of most Christian denominations.

"Therefore I have a responsibility not just to my fellow
Muslims but also to Malaysians who profess other religions as
well," he added, before finishing his speech with a call for
religious unity, citing a passage from the Bible.

Abdullah took the leadership of the 57-nation Organization of
the Islamic Conference (OIC) last year and has tried to galvanize
a group speaking for a fifth of humanity into more effective
positions on Iraq and the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

But at home, he runs a secular government ruling over a
population where Muslims are a slim majority and the state
religion is Islam. Almost half the population, with big ethnic
Chinese and Indian minorities, follow other faiths or beliefs.

At times, ethnic minorities and moderate Muslims alike chafe
against Islamic injunctions, which recently included a ban on the
use of mobile-phone text messaging for marketing competitions.

"I do not want to claim that there are no problems among the
different ethnic and religious communities in Malaysia," he said.

"I do not want to claim that there are no latent tensions and
frustrations. There are still very many things that we need to
work on, but if the world ever needed a lesson in diversity and
making it work, I am confident Malaysia can be a showcase."

With the aim of keeping some of these tensions under control,
Malaysia's film censors recently decided to bar Muslims and other
non-Christians from seeing The Passion of The Christ, Mel
Gibson's graphic film about Christ's crucifixion.

The ruling that the film was only for Christian eyes upset the
WCC. Its visiting general secretary, Kenyan Methodist minister
Samuel Kobia, said anybody should be able to see it.

Asked about the screening restrictions, Abdullah said he had
merely granted a request by Christian groups. "The approach made
to us was to allow for the picture to be shown to specific
audiences...I said we have no problem with that," he said.

The Passion of The Christ breaks Islamic taboos on flesh-and-
blood portrayals of holy figures. It is being shown in parts of
the Middle East, the heart of Islam, largely thanks to a Jewish
outcry over the film. It is also screening in Indonesia, the
world's most populous Muslim nation, on general release.

Asked after his speech why he had shed a tear, the prime
minister said his mind had turned to all the suffering in the
world. But it was clear the prayer for his wife, led by a
Malaysian bishop, had moved him before he rose to speak.

Abdullah's wife has been undergoing breast cancer treatment in
the United States.